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Comment Is format shifting allowed? (Score 1) 288

Could Twitter choose to start printing out the records Congressional Republicans are likely to demand, filing them away in a storage facility, and then deleting the electronic versions? The Twitter employees who did the printing could verify that these are accurate copies of the originals. Too bad for the interns who would have to dig through literal tons of paper to try to find whatever smoking gun Republicans think is there.

Comment 6 countries said no. What if they continue? (Score 1) 182

Italy, Finland, Sweden, Luxembourg, Poland and the Netherlands voted no. This law needs to be written into the laws of each EU country. What if those six countries simply didn't write laws implementing that, or did write laws implementing those two sections but half-assed it by making the burden of proof high and/or the punishment low?

Comment Re: Obvious First Post (Score 1) 179

Walls dont work. Thats why we already built a bunch at major border entry points, rich people like Nancy and Obama have walls around their mansions, jails have them, the military uses them in various forms for defense, golf courses for the rich use them, dog parks use them, the federal government uses them at high security facilities and so on.

Walls work IF you have people guarding against attackers using ladders, tunnels, write cutters, or other tools/techniques to bypass, damage, or destroy the walls. In all the examples you gave except perhaps for the dog parks, there are people whose job it is to monitor the wall and act if they see someone climbing or breaking the wall.

People have climbed over the wall around the White House. They were stopped by Secret Service agents. If the agents weren't present, the wall wouldn't prevent someone from trespassing. At best it stopped the lazy from trying to enter and slowed the determined attackers enough for the Secret Service agents to get into position.

Comment Re:Well, yeah. (Score 1) 180

According to Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abramowitz_and_Stegun) "Because the Handbook is the work of U.S. federal government employees acting in their official capacity, it is not protected by copyright in the United States." At the end of the article are links to places you can download it. The successor to A&S, the NIST Handbook of Mathematical Functions (which has an online companion, https://dlmf.nist.gov/) omits the tables (referring to A&S or to other papers.)

Comment Re:Here's a thought.... (Score 1) 230

If you're talking about the definition of terrorism in the United States, the US Code states:

(5) the term “domestic terrorism” means activities that—
(A) involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State;
(B) appear to be intended—
(i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;
(ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or
(iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and
(C) occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States.

Giving blankets infected with smallpox to people located in the United States obviously satisfies part A and C. [Attempted murder is a violation of United States law.] One could argue that it was intended to intimidate the civilian population to whom the blankets were given and so satisfies part B item i.

Comment Re:I don't see a problem with this (Score 1) 340

Agreed. How much money would the City of London's financial corporations lose as companies moved their funds to banks in other countries that protect their accounts with strong encryption? How much money would May's government be willing to throw at the City of London to keep those banks afloat? How many of those banks are "too big to fail"?

Comment Get the NCAA involved (Score 1) 587

I'm skeptical that these companies lobbying the government of Texas would cause them to change their mind. But if the NCAA does in Texas what they did in North Carolina, and announces that due to the actions of these government officials in supporting this bill that the seven (American) football bowl games currently scheduled to be held in various Texas stadiums in December 2017 would be moved to other venues, THAT would draw the attention of the citizens of Texas. Football is kind of a big thing in Texas.

Comment Re:Did the court know it was a reenactment? (Score 1) 111

*this*

I guarantee you if I was a juror and something is presented as evidence and *later* is claimed to be a reenactment then I will assume "hand in the cookie jar" and will then (given the general climate of distrust of blue in the country right now) likely presume that to equate to an attempt to fabricate evidence. Once I get that in my head then *all* the testimony from that cop and his co-workers in support of his testimony becomes hearsay at best and lies at worst... eg. I become a defense attorney's favorite juror.

It's worse than that. I'm no lawyer but assuming this cop remains on the force, I would be shocked if any defense attorney fails to bring this up when he takes the witness stand in a trial, using it to speak to his (lack of) credibility. "You offered a 'reenactment' in that case -- how can we believe that you didn't do another reenactment in this case?" He becomes a defense attorney's favorite witness.

Comment Re:It should not even be a crime (Score 1) 111

According to the charges document from the Ars Technica article (https://arstechnica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/cajacharges.pdf):

"Count 4 - Possession of a weapon by previous offender (F6)

On or about November 2, 2016, Joseph Frank Cajar unlawfully, feloniously, and knowingly possessed, used, or carried upon his person a firearm or other weapon, namely: .357 Magnum, and Joseph Frank Cajar was previously convicted of a felony, namely: Menacing, as defined by Colorado, C.R.S. 18-3-206(1)(2)(a)(1), on July 12, 2000 and/or Sex Assault, as defined by Colorado, C.R.S. 18--3-403(1)(a)(D), on May 20, 1998 and/or Theft, as defined by Colorado, C.R.S 18-4-401(1)(2)(c) on September 1,1994; in violation of section 18-12-108(1), C.R.S."

From LexisNexis, C.R.S. (Colorado Revised Statutes) section 18-12-108(1) states:

"(1) A person commits the crime of possession of a weapon by a previous offender if the person knowingly possesses, uses, or carries upon his or her person a firearm as described in section 18-1-901 (3) (h) or any other weapon that is subject to the provisions of this article subsequent to the person's conviction for a felony, or subsequent to the person's conviction for attempt or conspiracy to commit a felony, under Colorado or any other state's law or under federal law.

C.R.S. 18-12-108"

To forestall the Second Amendment argument, I note that the page from which I copied that statue says "Constitutionality of section upheld. People v. Marques, 179 Colo. 86, 498 P.2d 929 (1972).", "The felon with a gun statute is not unconstitutional. People v. Bergstrom, 190 Colo. 105, 544 P.2d 396 (1975).", "This section is legitimate and constitutional means of accomplishing the general assembly's obvious purpose. People v. Tenorio, 197 Colo. 137, 590 P.2d 952 (1979).", "Because the right to bear arms is not absolute, nor is this section vague or overbroad. People v. Taylor, 190 Colo. 144, 544 P.2d 392 (1975).", "The right to bear arms is not absolute as that right is limited to the defense of one's home, person, and property. People v. Ford, 193 Colo. 459, 568 P.2d 26 (1977).", and "Balancing of rights. The conflicting rights of the individual's right to bear arms and the state's right, indeed its duty under its inherent police power, to make reasonable regulations for the purpose of protecting the health, safety, and welfare of the people prohibits granting an absolute right to bear arms under all situations. People v. Blue, 190 Colo. 95, 544 P.2d 385 (1975)."

Comment Re:That's the big problem... (Score 2) 82

He HAD a backup hard drive. When he found that the hard drive had failed, he tried to access the files on Megaupload. In how many places should he have kept his data, and how much more should he have spent purchasing the hardware or subscribing to a storage service in the case that both his local hard drive and the cloud account where he stored his data were rendered inaccessible?

Comment Re:Don't forget (Score 2) 351

I went back to the source article. It basically is a suggestion to require that certain filtering software be installed by manufacturers or pay $20 per box which would go to fight anti-human trafficking. The software is not required to be used or even turned on by default, and evidently can be removed.

Can be disabled or removed ... for now. As soon as this politician needs to run for re-election, he'll toughen his stance and find some data to cherry-pick to support his position that this software should be mandatory and should only be able to be disabled by paying a fee to the government. Meanwhile by the time a kid is 8 or 9 they'll probably be savvy enough with technology to bypass or uninstall the software.

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